Strength and success - they are above morality, above criticism. It seems, then, that it is not what you do, but how you do it and what you call it. Is there a check in men, deep in them, that stops or punishes? There doesn't seem to be. The only punishment is for failure. In effect no crime is committed unless a criminal is caught.

The book is very different in tone from Steinbeck's amoral and ecological stance in earlier works like Tortilla Flat and Cannery Row. The story is about two traveling ranch workers George and Lennie trying to work up enough money to buy their own farm/ranch. Soon after he began work on East of Eden (1952) which he considered his best work.

John Ernst Steinbeck Jr. (February 27 1902 – December 20 1968) was an American writer. As the author of twenty-seven books including sixteen novels six non-fiction books and five collections of short stories Steinbeck received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1962.